


Tumble

by Arlzureinne_Karale



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Character Study, Gryffindor!Percy, M/M, Quidditch, Slytherin!Nico
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-07
Updated: 2017-11-07
Packaged: 2019-01-30 18:16:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12658833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arlzureinne_Karale/pseuds/Arlzureinne_Karale
Summary: And in the end, the Slytherin's chaser fell. Quite literally.





	Tumble

**Author's Note:**

> Percy Jackson and the Olympians and all related fandoms belongs to Rick Riordan. Hogwarts belongs to JK Rowling. First attempt at writing Percy/Nico, a light character study, I guess?

Quidditch Cup was here.

The hustle it made was almost overbearing, since it was an annual occasion—which meant, seventh year students surely had already seen it seven times since they first enrolled in Hogwarts. Yet, each year, the enthusiasm was always the same as the last, as if it was the first time all over again.

It was hard to not be swept by the waves of fervor, even the teachers seemed excited when they sat down in the spectator tower, chatters and conversations drifted down between them. Some of the younger, playful teachers quietly pooled bets in one hat; filled with small amounts of golden coins as well as Honeydukes’ candies, courtesy of a certain black-haired Transfiguration teacher.

The students were even more exhilarated. Some was going as far as making their house’s insignias or flags, waving it around with child-like eagerness, even if the first match was just about to begin.

Far in the changing room of Slytherin, a certain dark-haired fifth year frowned. He could hear the commotion right above him slowly dying down: a sign that the match will begin soon enough. Around him, his teammates’ chattering quietened when their captain clapped his hands, pulling all their attention to the blond with scar on his countenance.

“Okay, guys! You ready?”

Honestly?

Nico di Angelo was not.

 

* * *

 

It wasn’t his first time participating in the Quidditch. Nico already participated the year before, as a chaser—and still so even now. Fourth year players were already a norm nowadays, especially when they showed a great talent, and considering Nico’s sister, Bianca di Angelo, was a keeper herself in her house, it was easy for him to tread his place in Slytherin’s team.

Apparently his team agreed that Nico’s way of flying was more suitable for a chaser instead of a seeker, not to mention he was small, fast, and deemed as agile, even on his broom. Resulting in sharp, dangerous dodges he showed when his opponent tried to snatch the quaffle in his hands on previous matches.

Now, Nico was a confident juvenile, at least confident enough with his actions in addition to his decisions. It wasn’t the match he was worried about, rather it was their opponent that took all of his concentration from the day his team assigned him as their chaser.

Gryffindor, Slytherin’s resident nemesis.

They beat Gryffindor last year, and it was the House of Lion’s tendency to always stand up with vengeance in the mask of bravery. Surely they would deploy all of their power to emerge as the champion again, for if Slytherin wasn’t the one who held the glory, then it was Gryffindor.

(Though, two years ago, Ravenclaw beat the both of them.)

Nonetheless, it still wasn’t the entirety of team Gryffindor that plagued Nico’s mind.

It was Perseus Jackson, or better known as Percy, Gryffindor’s pride and joy. Gryffindor’s one and only seeker that was said to be Golden Snitch’s favorite player, for the seventh year student had always managed to catch the said golden ball in his entire Quidditch career so far. Unfortunately, last year, at Nico’s first Quidditch Cup, Percy broke his hand trying to save a student who slipped from the stairs—the reason why he wasn’t in the match.

Now Percy was fully healed, he would be Gryffindor’s seeker. And the problem was, Nico has a massive crush on him ever since the seventh year student helped him cleaned a mess of a spell gone wrong in the library, all the way while laughing amusedly and praising Nico good-naturedly because Percy had never seen a spell that pulled all the books from all the shelves.

“You here, Nico?”

Snapping from his daydream, the teen was face to face with his captain, Luke Castellan. The older young man was half-turned to Nico’s way that was standing in line behind him, facing the curtained entrance to the pitch. The blond was raising both of his eyebrows in a silent question.

Nico loosened his grip on his broom. “Why would I not?”

Luke shrugged, a small grin made its way to his visage, suspiciously resembling the grin of their Transfiguration teacher; Hermes. Now Nico finally understood why there was a rumor that Luke was Hermes’ son. “I thought you’re sick. Wouldn’t want one of our chasers fall, yes?”

However before Nico spat out an encounter on how he would never fall from his broom, the green curtains that served as the entrance door to Slytherin’s changing room was pulled up, and golden light promptly conquered the darkness, blinding the distasteful fifth year.

The cheers were back, louder than before. Nico followed Luke’s steps out from the changing room, all the way while blinking to adjust his vision. His captain led them to the center of the pitch, in which their rival was waiting with the referee. When all of Slytherin’s members already lined themselves neatly beside their captain in addition to facing their respective opponent, Luke greeted Reyna Avila Ramirez-Arellano with a firm handshake under watchful eyes of the referee.

Nico’s gaze drifted for a moment to the leftmost side, where the seeker of the both teams were facing each other. Percy was standing with relaxed stance in the Gryffindor’s side, almost bouncing on his heels for some reason or another. The older male’s attention was already strayed before Nico glanced at him, and thus, brown eyes met a pair of gleaming surface of ocean.

Then Percy grinned in a greeting.

Nico promptly hopped on his broom when Luke gestured to their team to get ready; intentionally bolted too high for a chaser to hang around. One hand covered the lower half of his visage, on which shades of red slowly crawled down his neck and the tips of his ears.

God, Nico was beyond saved.

The referee opened the box placed in the center of the pitch, between the two captains now already hovered just a little higher than the ground. In a blink of eyes, the bludgers and the snitch were released from the box, slicing the air with hisses of air and the speed worthy to be a nightmare.

The quaffle came next, and the seekers raced for snitch-hunt a second after.

Slytherin managed to take the control of the harmless ball first, dashing to the Gryffindor’s pole. Nico steered his broom to pursue his teammates, chaos broke down in the pitch now that the beaters had started to throw havoc in the form of bludgers between one and another.

One of the Gryffindor’s chaser, a blond whom Nico believed goes by the name Jason, managed to squeeze between Ethan Nakamura and Octavian from underneath them, expertly pushing the quaffle between his opponent’s grip with only his fingertips, giving enough power to make the ball escaped from the House of Snake’s grip with the momentum of their speed.

Against gravity, the ball levitated. Jason made an expression akin to doom when he realized his push wasn’t enough to make the quaffle shot up to the air like he, maybe, originally planned.

Nico swooped down, quickly holding the possession of the ball. The fifth year gripped the quaffle close to his chest, in case Jason tried his trick again. The black-haired boy promptly closed the remaining distances between him and Gryffindor’s goal posts, not even slowing down when his gaze met the keeper, a seventh year who goes by the name Charles Beckendorf.

Charles tried to seize the ball in Nico’s grip, but Nico jerked his broom to the side and pushed forward, skillfully changing his hands and throwing the ball to the highest goal post. The harmless ball passed the goal post; first point for Slytherin.

Nico could hear Clarrise La Rue shouting proudly while she hit one of the bludger to Gryffindor’s side, narrowly missing Leo Valdez who scrambled to bolt away from the violent, iron ball.

Another bludger rushed past Nico’s head, and the noiret quickly retreated to his house’s side. Those bullet-like balls were bound to hurt someone real bad. Nico wouldn’t be surprised if should there was indeed a case of serious wounds because a bludger decided to slam against a poor victim.

The quaffle was thrown again, and Gryffindor finally made their move. Nico frowned distastefully when he saw Jason and Leo precisely throwing the quaffle to one and another, dodging Ethan as well as Octavian. With almost an intimidating speed, the pair of chasers closed in to Slytherin’s goal posts, right in Nico’s way.

Brown eyes carefully followed the way the quaffle was tossed like a volleyball before Nico rushed to the front right when the ball hovered in the air. Yet he was a second too late, and Leo tossed the quaffle behind him, away from Octavian’s and Nico’s fingers, right into Reyna’s hands.

The brown-haired girl threw the ball with all of her power—which was a lot more than average, enough to catch Luke startled. The keeper scrambled to seize the ball, the momentum pushed him too close to their own goal post. Luke regained his composure fast, and Nico followed the other chasers rushing to Gryffindor’s side as their captain threw the quaffle to their way.

Nico caught the ball, gaining his speed slightly faster than his fellow chaser. Reyna was shouting, but the uproar of excited spectators drowned whatever she wanted to say. Nico’s eyes met Charles’ gaze again; the younger one narrowed his eyes.

Everyone was shouting now, Nico could hear the distinct sound of Ethan’s voice. Charles paused, seemed distracted, yet still as focused. The enthusiastic chattering around them was sliced by Jason’s scream, right behind Nico, giving the young Slytherin a jolt of surprise:

“Look out!”

And something heavy crashed into Nico’s side, tipping his balance into chaos.

A bludger hit him—hard, Nico was sure he broke a rib or two. His grip on his broom and the quaffle promptly came undone, and next, gravity was the only thing that embraced him. Panicked voices buzzed all around, all not his, for the only thing Nico could sense was the pain.

Something fluttered around him. A flash of red, and an arm immediately wrapped around Nico’s middle, shifting all the way up until a palm pressed the chaser’s face to a nicely built shoulder, shielding him from whatever would come next. The owner of the hand quickly flipped them midair, so whoever it was, in the worst case, they would meet the ground first instead of Nico.

The Slytherin’s chaser tried to take a look; green eyes met his gaze.

Percy spun his wand, loudly casting a hover charm. Their momentum was killed, but Percy’s back still met the ground none so gently, and the Gryffindor’s seeker let out a soft ‘Oomph’ upon the unexpected contact. Though he didn’t indulge the pain, for a second later, Percy flipped the two of them again, gently lowering Nico to the ground, his action contrasted with his panicked tone:

“Are you all right!?”

Nico groaned, the pain was impossible. His side ached, the pain was burning his skin, and he swore he broke his ribs. It was a wonder why the bludger chose to slam into him when there were thirteen other players in the pitch, had he accidentally jinxed himself?

“I’ll live,” the younger teen finally spoke.

Percy sighed, eyes the shades of slightest green flitted to Nico’s side before settling back to his face. “With pain, I know. Stay with me a little bit, don’t sleep yet.” As if to visualize his point, the older male softly tapped Nico’s cheek with his fingers, frowning.

Nico swatted Percy’s hand, shaking his head. “I won’t die.”

It was already humiliating enough to get hit by a violent, charmed ball spawned right from hell and fell from his broom in front of Percy—Percy Jackson, his crush, no less—and Nico would like to disappear into the infirmary now to save his remaining pride, if should he still had some.

Percy nodded, his fingertips brushed Nico’s cheek with the lightest touch before he retreated. “Yes, but I want to make sure you’ll be all right.” The seeker’s sight then turned to the group of medics running to their place with a stretcher, ready to bring the poor fifth year to his place of demise.

Nico’s eyes met Luke’s amused stare as the medics worked him on the stretcher, who quickly tried to regain his professional captain’s stare to no avail. The younger male hissed to the blond who hovered on his broom just by Nico’s side, mouthing curses that fell into deaf ears.

“Up you go, Nico,” Percy hummed when the last chord of the stretcher was fastened, earning a flinch from the chaser as he was too busy murdering his own senior with his eyes.

Startled, the boy looked up, back to Percy. “You know me?”

Percy grinned, his entire visage lightened the way stars did when the night encroached twilight. It was the same grin he offered when he saved Nico from falling from the stairs last year, even it made him accidentally broke his hand in the process. The seventh year already saved Nico from falling twice, and he didn’t even know Nico already fell for him thrice.

“Let’s go grab some food in Hogsmeade when you’re all better.”

He wouldn’t admit it even if his life depended on it; but Nico felt better already.

.

**Author's Note:**

> Good day!
> 
> Thank you for having me, this is the first time I contributed for this fandom, somehow desperate for Percico. Desperate times call for desperate measures, indeed.
> 
> I'm not really used to writing romance, as you can see. But I'll try my best in regard to write our adorable angsty juvenile and his equally adorable oblivious hero. I really want to write a sequel for this piece, about their date in Hogsmeade, but since I can't really hold promises nowadays, let's just wait, cough.
> 
> So yeah! I'll lurking for a while in this fandom now, just a heads up.
> 
> Lastly, thank you for reading!  
> \- Azureinne K.


End file.
